Head
of a young woman (dishevelled)Parma, National Art Gallery, 1506-1508 (?), shaded earth and amber
turned green on a board prepared with biacca, 24,7 x 21 cm.

For this sketch a much
earlier date of about 1490 has been proposed. Carlo Pedretti asked1
if this was not one of his early works, “associated in technique and
style to the sketches for the Adoration of the Kings and St.
Jerome ”, or to a work of the latter part of the fifteenth century,
recalling the robustness of certain Lombard images, or else Leonardo’s
later reflection on his experiences as a young man. This is quite a wide
range of proposals and Pedretti preferred the last one. For its
technique and style and the plasmatic form of its light.It is a fascinating face,
slightly spoilt by a badly painted eye. The faintly accentuated hair
manages to give the idea of the breeze that agitates it. We wanted to
show a study for the lost painting of the Leda,of
which many preparatory
drawings were
made, but the meditative character is more typical of a Madonna rather
than a profane figure. It was still Pedretti who lamented the exclusion
of this portrait from the Leonardo catalogue by many scholars:
“Perhaps, in all his earthly thinness, this is the most sublime of
Leonardo’s works, more sublime than the Mona Lisa or The
Last Supper, a work that was conceived to live out of time and
space.”